


Sullen Load is Full; So Slow on the Spit

by apodiopsys



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-11
Updated: 2012-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-30 22:36:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apodiopsys/pseuds/apodiopsys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Maybe I’m in the black / Maybe I’m on my knees / Maybe I’m in the gap between the two trapezes</i> or "Somehow, Sam has to keep surviving while Dean's burning in hell."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sullen Load is Full; So Slow on the Spit

**Author's Note:**

> Lyric based fic from Every Teardrop is a Waterfall by Coldplay. It makes me... sad? ~~I absolutely did not enjoy writing this I am absolutely not sadistic to my boys not at all no.~~

Dean dies on a Friday. His year is up. The hellhounds come to get him while Lilith laughs and Sam watches, defenceless and helpless against the invisible bitches that are dragging his brother to hell. He doesn’t realize until after that he’s screaming, screaming at Lilith, _Stop them, you fucking bitch,_ screaming at Dean, _Don’t you dare leave me alone,_ screaming at Ruby’s body, not even her own but possessed by Lilith, _Do something._ Sam doesn’t know how he gets there but then he’s on the floor with Dean’s head in his lap, tears chasing each other in a race to get off his face fastest. 

It takes Sam a long time to realize that he’s alone with a dozen collapsed or dead bodies.

+

At first it’s kind of an unconscious decision, but then the whites and greys start getting left behind at motels or lost at the laundromat, and when he buys new shirts and socks and boxers at Walmart or Target or wherever he happens to be at they’re always in black. His duffel bag is different shades of shadows, ranging from dark grey to coal black with the silver of an extra handgun tucked away inside. While he’s ordering a sandwich at a sandwich shop the guy behind the counter - a loud punk guy with hair the same color as his shirt who for some reason reminds him a little bit of Dean - leans towards him confidentially and asks if he lost his eyeliner.

The weirdest thing - if it’s possible to make a list of things in order of weirdness when your brother’s in hell and you’re trying to get him out while balancing the whole psyhcic telekinesis demon-ganking-with-your-mind - is that he’s behind the wheel of the Impala, he can choose what music he wants to listen to without being told to _shut his cake-hole._ It doesn’t change much, though. For the first month he can’t even get himself to change the cassette that was in the player while they drove to New Harmony, so he listens to _Slippery When Wet_ on a never ending loop until he could sing every song backwards and forwards and sideways while tapdancing in his sleep. 

A point comes around where Sam takes it upon himself to wash Dean’s clothes, so he empties his duffel bag into a basket with his own and washes them all at once, since almost everything is some shade of black anyway. He forgets about it and doesn’t remember until he pulls a t-shirt over his head and is almost suffocated by the smell of his brother underneath the fresh washed, laundry detergent smell. Sam sits on the edge of the bed gasping for air; after that, he wears Dean’s shirts with AC/DC and Van Halen and Led Zeppelin logos on the front. He doesn’t care that they’re almost too small, snug around the chest and shoulders. 

Sam wears his brother’s shirts and drives his brother’s car but eventually he’s able to change the cassette.

+

He goes to the church to interrogate a priest; dressed up in a suit with a fake smile and a fake badge, he introduces himself as Sammy Hagar and asks the priest his thoughts about demonic possession and exorcism. Sam doesn’t know how it happens, but the interrogation is veered around until the priest is asking him questions about religion: how long since he’s been in a church and if he prays. He notices that the priest doesn’t even bother asking him if he believes.

The confessional box makes him claustrophobic. He grates his fingers along the mesh wires, separating the two booths and two men but making it so they can hear each other. Sam tells the priest, “I miss him, Father. I’m doing everything I can to get him back.” He licks his lips, mouth dry all of a sudden and tries not to think about crossroads or long, brown hair or dripping red blood, and he says, “I don’t think he would like what it is that I do, but I’m trying. I can’t do this by myself.” He stumbles out of the tiny, tiny room before the priest can even say anything, because he feels like he’s going to choke on the air he’s breathing if he stays a second longer. 

Kneeling at one of the pews in the back, he’s half hidden by shadows, and Sam prays for the first time in a long time. He prays for the first time since Jessica, since his LSATs, since he left Dean and Dad to go to Stanford. He prays for Dean, that he’ll find a way to get him out. Sam prays for the strength to stop what he’s doing, for the courage to admit that he’s wrong and to give it all up.

+

The Impala gets parked outside of liquor stores almost as much as it’s parked outside of cheap motels. Sam drinks straight from the bottle, keeps one in the trunk next to the rocksalt and one under the passenger seat, _just in case_. He’s careful enough that he isn’t drunk, not during the day. He drinks to keep his engines running, so that he’s numb enough that he can’t feel anything.

Later on when there are no more witnesses and no more research Sam will drink until he can’t see straight, until he’s seeing two of the bartender and spilling vodka or whiskey or gin and tonic down himself because his fine motor skills are off and he can’t aim properly for his mouth. Sometimes he’ll slide off the chair onto the floor and once he gets put in the hospital, stomach in need of pumping. Mostly, though, he’ll stumble through to the bathroom and puke his guts out. Sam will wash his mouth, avoid catching his reflection in the mirror and go out and order another drink. If he kills his liver in the process of forgetting, so be it. 

His knees become an increasingly popular place to be. Sam prays now, before he goes to sleep, when he passes through a town and he sees a little white church with a fence and a steeple. He lights a candle and asks for guidance, ignores the look that Ruby gives him and moves over to the bar. Sam finds himself in dark, damp alleys, a little disoriented and a lot intoxicated, sucking cock for the bartender or the guy who bought him a drink and Sam feels weirdly grounded out here, with gravel biting into his knees and spit dribbling down his chin. He goes home with them sometimes, lets them do whatever they want. There are days where he wakes up with no memories of the past twelve hours, but bruises and burns and scrapes to use as a map to figure it out.

+

Standing at the ledge on the roof of different buildings, Sam feels air whipping strands of his hair around, cutting into his skin. It doesn’t feel cold, not really, not that much. It’s more something that he notices in the back of his mind, like when he knows that he’s forgetting something but he can’t remember _what_. There is something so satisfying about being up there, knowing that the only thing between him and bliss (and then inevitably hot _hot_ flames of hell) are a step into open air.

He stumbles one time, standing on the ledge with the tips of his feet resting on nothing but open air. The wind is harder than he thinks and it pushes him forward, tips him over and his arms swing out, throwing himself backwards to land hard on his ass. Gravel on the floor of the roof dig into the meat of his palms, but he presses his fingers down harder and gasps as tears leak down his face because he hasn’t felt so alive in months. Sam bites down hard on his tongue, hard enough that he can taste blood. For three beautiful seconds his heart was in his throat and his pulse jumped erratically and he hung suspended in air, timeless in that high. 

What stops him from actually trying, even though he goes up to rooftops and stands on the ledges of buildings more and more, is that he promised Dean that he wouldn’t.


End file.
